* * * * *
The struggle was almost instantly over, for, outnumbered and hampered as they were by their heavy space-suits, Kent and Liggett and their followers had no chance. Their hands, still in the suits, were bound quickly behind them at Jandron's orders.
Kent heard an exclamation, and saw Marta starting toward him from behind Jandron's men. But a sweep of Jandron's arm brushed her rudely back. Kent strained madly at his bonds. Krell's face had a triumphant look.
"Did it all work as I told you it would, Jandron?" he asked.
"It worked," Jandron answered impassively. "When they saw fifteen of us coming from the wreck-pack in space-suits, they opened right up to us."
Kent understood, and cursed Krell's cunning. Crain, seeing the fifteen figures approaching from the wreck-pack, had naturally thought they were Kent's party, and had let them enter to overwhelm his half-dozen men.
"We put Crain and his men over in the Martian Queen," Jandron continued, "and took all their helmets so they can't escape. The girl we brought over here. Did you find a wreck with fuel?"
Krell nodded. "A Pluto liner a quarter-mile back, and we can pump the fuel over here by connecting tube-lines. What the devil--"
Jandron had made a signal at which three of his men had leapt forward on Krell, securing his hands like those of the others.
"Have you gone crazy, Jandron?" cried Krell, his face red with anger and surprise.
"No," Jandron replied impassively; "but the men are as tired as I am of your bossing ways, and have chosen me as their sole leader."
"You dirty double-crosser!" Krell raged. "Are you men going to let him get away with this?"
The men paid no attention, and Jandron motioned to the airlock. "Take them over to the Martian Queen too," he ordered, "and make sure there's no space-helmet left there. Then get back at once, for we've got to get the fuel into this ship and make a getaway."
* * * * *
The helmets of Kent and Krell and the other helpless prisoners were put upon them, and, with hands still bound, they were herded into the airlock by eight of Jandron's men attired in space-suits also. The prisoners were then joined one to another by a strand of metal cable.
Kent, glancing back into the ship as the airlock's inner door closed, saw Jandron giving rapid orders to his followers, and noticed Marta held back from the airlock by one of them. Krell's eyes glittered venomously through his helmet. The outer door opened, and their guards jerked them forth into space by the connecting cable.
They were towed helplessly along the wreck-pack's rim toward the Martian Queen. Once inside its airlock, Jandron's men removed the prisoners' space-helmets and then used the duplicate-control inside the airlock itself to open the inner door. Through this opening they thrust the captives, those inside the ship not daring to enter the airlock. Jandron's men then closed the inner door, re-opened the outer one, and started back toward the Pallas with the helmets of Kent and his companions.
Kent and the others soon found Crain and his half-dozen men who rapidly undid their bonds. Crain's men still wore their space-suits, but, like Kent's companions, were without space-helmets.
"Kent, I was afraid they'd get you and your men too!" Crain exclaimed. "It's all my fault, for when I saw Jandron and his men coming from the wreck-pack I never doubted but that it was you."
"It's no one's fault," Kent told him. "It's just something that we couldn't foresee."
* * * * *
Crain's eyes fell on Krell. "But what's he doing here?" he exclaimed. Kent briefly explained Jandron's treachery toward Krell, and Crain's brows drew ominously together.
"So Jandron put you here with us! Krell, I am a commissioned captain of a space-ship, and as such can legally try you and sentence you to death here without further formalities."
Krell did not answer, but Kent intervened. "There's hardly time for that now, sir," he said. "I'm as anxious to settle with Krell as anyone, but right now our main enemy is Jandron, and Krell hates Jandron worse than we do, if I'm not mistaken."
"You're not," said Krell grimly. "All I want right now is to get within reach of Jandron."
"There's small chance of any of us doing that," Crain told them. "There's not a single space-helmet on the Martian Queen."
"You've searched?" Liggett asked.
"Every cubic inch of the ship," Crain told him. "No, Jandron's men made sure there were no helmets left here, and without helmets this ship is an inescapable prison."
"Damn it, there must be some way out!" Kent exclaimed. "Why, Jandron and his men must be starting to pump that fuel into the Pallas by now! They'll be sailing off as soon as they do it!"
Crain's face was sad. "I'm afraid this is the end, Kent. Without helmets, the space between the Martian Queen and the Pallas is a greater barrier to us than a mile-thick wall of steel. In this ship we'll stay, until the air and food give out, and death releases us."
"Damn it, I'm not thinking of myself!" Kent cried. "I'm thinking of Marta! The Pallas will sail out of here with her in Jandron's power!"
"The girl!" Liggett exclaimed. "If she could bring us over space-helmets from the Pallas we could get out of here!"
Kent was thoughtful. "If we could talk to her--she must still have that suit-phone I gave her. Where's another?"
* * * * *
Crain quickly detached the compact suit-phone from inside the neck of his own space-suit, and Kent rapidly tuned it to the one he had given Marta Mallen. His heart leapt as her voice came instantly from it:
"Rance! Rance Kent--"
"Marta--this is Rance!" he cried.
He heard a sob of relief. "I've been calling you for minutes! I was hoping that you'd remember to listen!
"Jandron and ten of the others have gone to that wreck in which you found the fuel," she added swiftly. "They unreeled a tube-line behind them as they went, and I can hear them pumping in the fuel now."
"Are the others guarding you?" Kent asked quickly.
"They're down in the lower deck at the tanks and airlocks. They won't allow me down on that deck. I'm up here in the middle-deck, absolutely alone.
"Jandron told me that we'd start out of here as soon as the fuel was in," she added, "and he and the men were laughing about Krell."
"Marta, could you in any way get space-helmets and get out to bring them over here to us?" Kent asked eagerly.
"There's a lot of space-suits and helmets here," she answered, "but I couldn't get out with them, Rance! I couldn't get to the airlocks with Jandron's seven or eight men down there guarding them!"
Kent felt despair; then as an idea suddenly flamed in him, he almost shouted into the instrument:
"Marta, unless you can get over here with helmets for us, we're all lost. I want you to put on a space-suit and helmet at once!"
* * * * *
There was a short silence, and then her voice came, a little muffled. "I've got the suit and helmet on, Rance. I'm wearing the suit-phone inside it."
"Good! Now, can you get up to the pilot-house? There's no one guarding it or the upper-deck? Hurry up there, then, at once."
Crain and the rest were staring at Kent. "Kent, what are you going to have her do?" Crain exclaimed. "It'll do no good for her to start the Pallas: those guards will be up there in a minute!"
"I'm not going to have her start the Pallas," said Kent grimly. "Marta, you're in the pilot-house? Do you see the heavy little steel door in the wall beside the instrument-panel?"
"I'm at it, but it's locked with a combination-lock," she said.
"The combination is 6-34-77-81," Kent told her swiftly. "Open it as quickly as you can."
"Good God, Kent!" cried Crain. "You're going to have her--?"
"Get out of there the only way she can!" Kent finished fiercely. "You have the door open, Marta?"
"Yes; there are six or seven control-wheels inside."
"Those wheels control the Pallas' exhaust-valves," Kent told her. "Each wheel opens the valves of one of the ship's decks or compartmen
ts and allows its air to escape into space. They're used for testing leaks in the different deck and compartment divisions. Marta, you must turn all those wheels as far as you can to the right."
"But all the ship's air will rush out; the guards below have no suits on, and they'll be--" she was exclaiming. Kent interrupted.
"It's the only chance for you, for all of us. Turn them!"
There was a moment of silence, and Kent was going to repeat the order when her voice came, lower in tone, a little strange:
"I understand, Rance. I'm going to turn them."
* * * * *
There was silence again, and Kent and the men grouped round him were tense. All were envisioning the same thing--the air rushing out of the Pallas' valves, and the unsuspecting guards in its lower deck smitten suddenly by an instantaneous death.
Then Marta's voice, almost a sob: "I turned them, Rance. The air puffed out all around me."
"Your space-suit is working all right?"
"Perfectly," she said.
"Then go down and tie together as many space-helmets as you can manage, get out of the airlock, and try to get over here to the Martian Queen with them. Do you think you can do that, Marta?"
"I'm going to try," she said steadily. "But I'll have to pass those men in the lower-deck I just--killed. Don't be anxious if I don't talk for a little."
Yet her voice came again almost immediately. "Rance, the pumping has stopped! They must have pumped all the fuel into the Pallas!"
"Then Jandron and the rest will be coming back to the Pallas at once!" Kent cried. "Hurry, Marta!"
The suit-phone was silent; and Kent and the rest, their faces closely pressed against the deck-windows, peered intently along the wreck-pack's edge. The Pallas was hidden from their view by the wrecks between, and there was no sign as yet of the girl.
Kent felt his heart beating rapidly. Crain and Liggett pressed beside him, the men around them; Krell's face was a mask as he too gazed. Kent was rapidly becoming convinced that some mischance had overtaken the girl when an exclamation came from Liggett. He pointed excitedly.
* * * * *
She was in sight, unrecognizable in space-suit and helmet, floating along the wreck-pack's edge toward them. A mass of the glassite space-helmets tied together was in her grasp. She climbed bravely over the stern of a projecting wreck and shot on toward the Martian Queen.
The airlock's door was open for her, and, when she was inside it, the outer door closed and air hissed into the lock. In a moment she was in among them, still clinging to the helmets. Kent grasped her swaying figure and removed her helmet.
"Marta, you're all right?" he cried. She nodded a little weakly.
"I'm all right. It was just that I had to go over those guards that were all frozen.... Terrible!"
"Get these helmets on!" Crain was crying. "There's a dozen of them, and twelve of us can stop Jandron's men if we get back in time!"
Kent and Liggett and the nearer of their men were swiftly donning the helmets. Krell grasped one and Crain sought to snatch it.
"Let that go! We'll not have you with us when we haven't enough helmets for our own men!"
"You'll have me or kill me here!" Krell cried, his eyes hate-mad. "I've got my own account to settle with Jandron!"
"Let him have it!" Liggett cried. "We've no time now to argue!"
Kent reached toward the girl. "Marta, give one of the men your helmet," he ordered; but she shook her head.
"I'm going with you!" Before Kent could dispute she had the helmet on again, and Crain was pushing them into the airlock. The nine or ten left inside without helmets hastily thrust steel bars into the men's hands before the inner door closed. The outer one opened and they leapt forth into space, floating smoothly along the wreck-pack's border with bars in their grasp, thirteen strong.
Kent found the slowness with which they floated forward torturing. He glimpsed Crain and Liggett ahead, Marta beside him, Krell floating behind him to the left. They reached the projecting freighters, climbed over and around them, braced against them and shot on. They sighted the Pallas ahead now. Suddenly they discerned another group of eleven figures in space-suits approaching it from the wreck-pack's interior, rolling up the tube-line that led from the Pallas as they did so. Jandron's party!
* * * * *
Jandron and his men had seen them and were suddenly making greater efforts to reach the Pallas. Kent and his companions, propelling themselves frenziedly on from another wreck, reached the ship's side at the same time as Jandron's men. The two groups mixed and mingled, twisted and turned in a mad space-combat.
Kent had been grasped by one of Jandron's men and raised his bar to crack the other's glassite helmet. His opponent caught the bar, and they struggled, twisting and turning over and over far up in space amid a half-score similar struggles. Kent wrenched his bar free at last from the other's grasp and brought it down on his helmet. The glassite cracked, and he caught a glimpse of the man's hate-distorted face frozen instantly in death.
Kent released him and propelled himself toward a struggling trio nearby. As he floated toward them, he saw Jandron beyond them making wild gestures of command and saw Krell approaching Jandron with upraised bar. Kent, on reaching the three combatants, found them to be two of Jandron's men overcoming Crain. He shattered one's helmet as he reached them, but saw the other's bar go up for a blow.
Kent twisted frantically, uselessly, to escape it, but before the blow could descend a bar shattered his opponent's helmet from behind. As the man froze in instant death Kent saw that it was Marta who had struck him from behind. He jerked her to his side. The struggles in space around them seemed to be ending.
Six of Jandron's party had been slain, and three of Kent's companions. Jandron's four other followers were giving up the combat, floating off into the wreck-pack in clumsy, hasty flight. Someone grasped Kent's arm, and he turned to find it was Liggett.
"They're beaten!" Liggett's voice came to him! "They're all killed but those four!"
"What about Jandron himself?" Kent cried. Liggett pointed to two space-suited bodies twisting together in space, with bars still in their lifeless grasp.
Kent saw through their shattered helmets the stiffened faces of Jandron and Krell, their helmets having apparently been broken by each other's simultaneous blows.
Crain had gripped Kent's arm also. "Kent, it's over!" he was exclaiming. "Liggett and I will close the Pallas' exhaust-valves and release new air in it. You take over helmets for the rest of our men in the Martian Queen."
* * * * *
In several minutes Kent was back with the men from the Martian Queen. The Pallas was ready, with Liggett in its pilot-house, the men taking their stations, and Crain and Marta awaiting Kent.
"We've enough fuel to take us out of the dead-area and to Neptune without trouble!" Crain declared. "But what about those four of Jandron's men that got away?"
"The best we can do is leave them here," Kent told him. "Best for them, too, for at Neptune they'd be executed, while they can live indefinitely in the wreck-pack."
"I've seen so many men killed on the Martian Queen and here," pleaded Marta. "Please don't take them to Neptune."
"All right, we'll leave them," Crain agreed, "though the scoundrels ought to meet justice." He hastened up to the pilot-house after Liggett.
In a moment came the familiar blast of the rocket-tubes, and the Pallas shot out cleanly from the wreck-pack's edge. A scattered cheer came from the crew. With gathering speed the ship arrowed out, its rocket-tubes blasting now in steady succession.
Kent, with his arm across Marta's shoulders, watched the wreck-pack grow smaller behind. It lay as when he first had seen it, a strange great mass, floating forever motionless among the brilliant stars. He felt the girl beside him shiver, and swung her quickly around.
"Let's not look back or remember now, Marta!" he said. "Let's look ahead."
She nestled closer inside his arm. "Yes, Rance. Let's look ahead."
THE MAN WHO RETURNED
INTRODUCTION
The Man Who Returned originally appeared in Weird Tales , in February, 1934.
By 1934, Edmond Hamilton was a seasoned pulp veteran who was not only popular with readers, but also able to be very prolific without sacrificing quality (according to Jack Williamson, in his biography Wonder's Child, Hamilton sent 40 stories to Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales without a single rejection or request for revision.). Classified as a "pulp" wordsmith, Hamilton was a much better writer than many of those who wrote for the slicks or book publication. His ability to take what we would consider a stock horror or science fiction situation and turn it on its ear is remarkable in itself, but it is also his ability to add a depth of character and feeling to his prose that puts his work far above his contemporaries. A case in point: The Man Who Returned.
Death has long been a staple of horror fiction. Whether in the form of a moldering corpse or premature burial, our fear of the last, great unknown has been the stuff of many a nightmare. Yet, Hamilton, in his usual style, does not resort to the usual horror trappings in "The Man Who Returned." Once the initial shivers have been encountered in the opening sequences, the tale takes a decidedly different turn (and it is interesting to point out that the reader never really finds out if John Woodford is really dead or simply cataleptic, since this is not important to the tale). Woodford is not a rotting corpse, nor is he a ghoulish figure after revenge. No blood, no gore, but a subtler form of horror, for Hamilton focuses on perception: the difference in the way we perceive ourselves and the way others perceive us.
Golden Age Science Fiction Classics (2011) Page 9